United Nations

President Obama’s most senior advisers convened last month to consider changes to the way the United States provides security aid to foreign nations, as a long-running struggle for control between the State and Defense departments intensifies.

The U.N. secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, took a veiled swipe Thursday at U.S. and Saudi air operations in Afghanistan and Yemen, denouncing “so-called ‘surgical strikes’” that hit medical facilities last year as “assaults on our common humanity.”

Are we doing enough to prevent the use of child soldiers? Rachel Stohl and Shannon Dick say while UN resolutions and national legislation are a step in the right direction, they don’t address the little stressed impact that military assistance has on the recruiting of child combatants.

Rhetoric aside, though, the Obama administration has largely refused to supply U.N. experts with details about the classified U.S. drone program, which has killed hundreds of suspected militants in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and other countries over the past decade.

The UN special investigator on counterterrorism has expressed his concern over civilian deaths from drone strikes in Yemen and Afghanistan, but says there has been a "significant de-escalation" in civilian casualties recorded in Pakistan.